{"id":5181,"date":"2013-06-18T17:46:37","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T16:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/?p=5181"},"modified":"2013-06-18T17:47:47","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T16:47:47","slug":"titanium-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2013\/06\/titanium-tales.html","title":{"rendered":"Titanium tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this month<\/a>\u2019s \u2018in your element\u2019 article<\/a> (subscription required), Mike Tarselli from Biomedisyn Corporation recounts just how pervasive titanium is in our lives. And by \u2018our lives\u2019 I refer to us human beings as well as us chemists.<\/p>\n

[Note: Find out more about Mike here<\/a> by reading his replies to our Reactions questions.]<\/p>\n

\"Ti_nchem.1656-i1\"<\/a>

{credit}\u00a9 DIDIER ZYLBERYNG \/ ALAMY{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n

Element 22 is ubiquitous on Earth\u00a0\u2013 although not as a pure metal, a form that has only become accessible in the 20th<\/sup> century. Titanium and its compounds serve a myriad of purposes. To name but a few, titanium is a component of jewellery, glasses frames, and the pins and screws used to staple together broken bones, while pigment TiO2<\/sub> also endows paints, toothpaste and pharmaceutical coatings with a bright, glimmering white.\u00a0 Not to mention partly making up the striking Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (pictured)!<\/p>\n

Chemists have long relied on titanium, in various compounds and oxidation states, to promote many, many reactions \u2013 the article<\/a> elegantly relates diverse ways in which titanium, in different oxidation states and coordination environments, engages with a variety of molecules, but I will avoid spoiling it here. Let me point out though that titanium compounds may not be as environmentally-benign as we might have thought. Few efforts have been made so far to recover catalysts from finished products (for example polyethylene bottles), or by-product salts, but this is an issue that seems worthy of attention.<\/p>\n

In any case, this year marks the 222nd<\/sup> anniversary of the discovery of element 22 \u2014 and what a rich 222 years that have been, too! As per Mike\u2019s toast, \u201craise a titanium silicate-coated champagne glass, and enjoy some titania-frosted cake. Delicious!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this month\u2019s \u2018in your element\u2019 article (subscription required), Mike Tarselli from Biomedisyn Corporation recounts just how pervasive titanium is in our lives. And by \u2018our lives\u2019 I refer to us human beings as well as us chemists.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-your-element"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}